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Aviation History
1946
1946 - 0289.PDF
. and AIRCRAFT ENGINEER Editorial Director G. GEOFFREY SMITH. M.B.E. Editor, - -CM. POULSEN Assistant Editor - MAURICE A. SMITH, (VV/NG CDR., R.A.f.VA) Art Editor - • JOHN YOXALL FIRST AERONAUTICAL WEEKLY IN THE W6RLD •• FOUNDED WO9 Editorial, Advertising and Publishing Offices: DORSET HOUSE, STAMFORD STREET, LONDON, S.E.I Telegrams : Truditur, Sedist, London. Telephone : Waterloo 3333 (35 line* . GLASGOW, C.2: 26B- RENFIELD ST. Telegrams: Iliffe, Glasgow Telephone: Central 48S7 COVENTRY: .8-10. CORPORATION ST. Telegrams : Autocar, Coventry. Telephone: Coventry 52 10. BIRMINGHAM, 2: ^1 'D"AV^GA o Telegrams : Autopress, Birmingham'. Telephone: Midland 2971 (5 lines). MANCHESTER, 3:26°! DEANSGATE- Telegrams : Iliffe, Manchester. Telephone: Blackfriars 4412. SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Home and Abroad: Year, £3 I 0. Registered at the G.P.O. as a Newspaper. 6 months, L\ 10 6. No. 1938. Vol. XLIX. February 14th, 1946. IFe Outlook Thursdays, One Shilling Fighter Efficiency RELEASE by the Ministry of Aircraft Productionthis week of data relating to the GlosterMeteor IV fighter version (the cleaned-up machine having previously raised the world's speed record to 606 m.p.h.) discloses the tact that very shortly iht Royal Air Force will have the fastest Service air- craft in the world. Carrying its full service equipment, but not loaded to its full permitted weight, the machine does 585 m.p.h. at ground level and climbs to 30,000ft. in five minutes. The static thrust from the two Rolls- Royce Derwent V units is 7,ooolb. If this is approxi- mately maintained at the top speed, it represents 10,920 thrust horsepower. So accustomed have we become to these spectacular figures that such performance is now almost taken for granted. But it must be admitted that it is still being achieved largely by brute force. Comparisons between jets and piston engines are always difficult; even more difficult are comparisons between aircraft fitted with such power units. To obtain a better perspective it is, however, not uninteresting to ask oneself how much advance in air- _frame aerodynamic design is represented by these very ^wigh performances. A fortnight ago we described the rjtawker Sea Fury, a type which hails from the same Sioup as the Gloster Meteor IV. The weights of the two types do not differ very much, i2,ooolb. for the Sea Fury and 12,5801b. mean weight for the Meteor. The former has a wing area of 28osq. ft., the latter 374sq- ft. Corresponding wing loadings are 43 and 33lb- per sq. ft. respectively, using as a basis for the Meteor its mean weight, which is the one for which trie Maximum speed is given. The fact that, with figures so nearly similar, one machine should have a top speed of 460 m.p.h., and the other one of 585 m.p.h. is likely to cause some surprise to the uninitiated, and to create the impression that the jet-propelled aircraft must be very much "cleaner," aerodynamically, than the airscrew-driven. This is not, of course, the case. The speed of the Meteor is due to the fact that the thrust remains sensibly constant at speed (for a given height), whereas with an airscrew- driven aircraft the thrust drops off with speed. In the case of the Sea Fury it is probably between 1,500 and i,6oolb. at 460 m.p.h., compared with the 7,ooolb. thrust available to the Meteor at 585 m.p.h. In other respects the Sea Fury can be said to score. Its climb is not so very inferior to that of the Meteor, 30,000ft. in eight minutes as against five minutes. On climb, that is to say at relatively, low forward speeds, the airscrew scores, and actually the static thrust ot the Sea Fury's airscrew is probably not very far short of that of the two jet units in the Meteor. Although of merely academic interest, since it could not be achieved in practice, it is somewhat illuminating to reflect that if the drag of the Sea Fury (say, r,5001b. at 460 m.p.h.) could be assumed to vary as the square of the speed, it would only be some 2,5001b. at 585 m.p.h. compared with approximately 7<oo°lb- for the Meteor IV. The American Records HITHERTO, but little information has been avail-able concerning the two records established byAmerican aircraft on which we commented re- cently ; the world's non-stop long-distance record by a B-29, and the American coast-to-coast record • by a Shooting Star jet-propelled aircraft. The former, it may be recollected, was from Guam to Washington, D.C., a distance of 8,198 miles in 35 hours 5 minutes, at an average speed of 234 m.p.h. The machine carried a double crew and 11,110 American gallons of fuel, and weighed 141,0001b. at the take-off. In addition to the.standard runway on Guam, 9,500ft. long, there was an extra taxi strip 780ft. long, and the
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